


here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road

by voodoochild



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Loneliness, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 16:33:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>November 5th, 1928, and the two people who will miss the Bankroll most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Boardwalk Empire Comment Ficathon"](http://cloudytea.livejournal.com/139537.html), for the prompt _"cause I am done with my graceless heart/so tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart"_. Title/prompt from Florence and the Machine's "Shake it Out".

It's the fourth whiskey sour for her and sixth whiskey neat for him.

It isn't helping.

Because Arnold is still lying in the city morgue and Meyer had a hole over his heart (bullet or _keriyah_ , Carolyn doesn't know and won't ask) as he ran in and out of the house, gathering papers and for all of it, Charlie is here.

Lying in his shirtsleeves on the divan, gun on his hip and red-rimmed eyes flashing at every sound, Charlie hasn't left her side. She isn't sure why, the boys with guns are outside and her husband's been cold for hours. What more threat could there be to her?

(He'll tell her later - years later, in a country far from home with scars on his face like the sobriquet his rival earned years ago - that it had been Arnold's request.

 _Protect her, Charlie. They can get me, but don't you dare let them have her._ )

The floor is chill through the thin cotton of her dress and her knees are beginning to ache, but she doesn't get up. There's something honest about this. Drinking her husband away in the cage he built for her, brightest of his boys by her side. A tribute, instead of the _kaddish_ she heard whispers of in Meyer's drawl and Benny's rasp.

Charlie's fingers thread through her hair, gold flashing against gold, and she leans her head against his leg. Thinks, idly, of what he'd do if she turned around, opened his trousers and put her mouth on him. He'd make a token effort to push her off, then surrender to grief and lust, his grip on her hair turning greedy and harsh. She's seen the way Arnold's boys look at her, knows she's still got the beauty that hooked the Bankroll all those years ago.

Arnold wouldn't even blame her. Would kiss her head and call her "Sweet" and know the fascination Charlie Luciano holds.

It wouldn't fill the emptiness.

He tenses as she gets to her feet, then crawls onto the divan next to him. Blinks down at her as she curls into his side (not the one with the gun, she knows better) and buries her face in his black curls. She breathes in smoke and whiskey and motor exhaust - _notArnold notArnold notArnold_ \- and tries not to shake with how much she still hurts.

"Why?" she asks, and she can't even finish the sentence. Why did he have to die, why couldn't one of the boys have been there, why would they say it was over money, why wasn't he home with her, why is there a tiny blonde showgirl and a dark-eyed lush claiming her money, why is Charlie staying, why, why, _why_?

Charlie's voice is thick, and she doesn't need to look up to see the tears falling.

"I don't know."

**Author's Note:**

> keriyah - the ritual mourning tear of clothing in Jewish religion  
> kaddish - Jewish prayer of mourning


End file.
